


The Widest Bridge

by RiaTheDreamer



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cyborg Simmons with Emphasis on Cyborg, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Injury, M/M, Self-Sacrifice, Set on Chorus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:33:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24440632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaTheDreamer/pseuds/RiaTheDreamer
Summary: “Wha-““Overheating,” Simmons answered Grif. He tried to say it casually as if what he’d just done had little consequence. “If the choice is between hypothermia or blood loss, we might as well try to stay warm.”Grif didn’t say anything but pressed himself against Simmons like a magnet unable to resist the metal.
Relationships: Dexter Grif/Dick Simmons
Comments: 23
Kudos: 158





	The Widest Bridge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AmateurScribes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmateurScribes/gifts).



With his fingers buried inside of Simmons, Grif couldn’t help but chuckle. “I should have used lube.”

“Shut up,” Simmons hissed into his pillow. “And don’t snap any wires.”

“It’s not the wires that are the problem. It’s the fucking buttons.”

Few people knew that Simmons had a hatch in his torso. Even fewer people had actually seen the mess of wires and oily gears that were hidden within.

Usually Simmons would do the maintenance himself. Sometimes he’d let Sarge do it and put up various upgrades he didn’t ask for, but every once in a full moon he’d reluctantly ask Grif to take a look at the deepest corners.

“Seriously, do you even know what the buttons are for?”

“Don’t push them!”

“I won’t!” The oil was surprisingly cool against his fingers, and when Grif pulled out the rag, the stains were brown rather than black. “Does this look right?”

Simmons nodded when Grif held it in front of his face. “Yeah. Just make sure you get it all.” While the ordeal wasn’t exactly painful, it did make Simmons flinch every few minutes.

“Right.”

“Not like when you clean your room. You can’t just shove it under the bed.”

“You asked me to do this, remember?” Grif grunted and twisted his finger to dig out the liquid dirt. “But seriously – what would happen if I pushed a button?”

“I don’t know. I’d overheat? Explode?”

“Seriously?”

“I just said: I don’t know. But Sarge was the one to install it, so you better be careful.”

“Good point.” Grif finished the job with a final swipe of the rag. He closed the hatch, careful not to touch any of the wires or buttons. There was a common joke of Simmons short-circuiting once his anger allowed it, but the thought of the mechanical insides actually giving out was horrifying. “There you go.”

Simmons pulled the shirt back over his head in a hurry, but Grif caught the sight of his reddened cheeks. “Thanks.”

Grif was generous enough to allow him a moment of privacy by collapsing on the bed with his back turned towards him. The smell of oil still lingered in the room.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking a well-deserved nap,” Grif answered and pressed his head against Simmons’ pillow. It felt softer than his own. “Job’s done – break earned.”

“It better be a quick nap. Kimball wants out in the field in thirty minutes.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you get her message?”

Simmons’ tone, sharp with annoyance, made Grif roll over to face him. “I muted it,” he said. He’s annoyed too, to be fair, but not at Simmons. This was supposed to be maintenance day. Simmons’ wires needed to be tightened, Grif’s muscles needed a day’s worth of rest. It was necessary to take care of each other like that. Fuck the war.

“She sent it _yesterday_.” Simmons was already putting on armor, sealing the deal. “I only asked you to help me because Sarge would take too long.”

“You need to work on your gracefulness.”

“You need to work on your speed,” Simmons replied and offered him a hand to help him stand. With a strained grunt, Grif let himself be pulled up from the bed.

“So where are we going, anyway?”

Simmons flinched.

* * *

“You _knew_ ,” Grif said darkly, though he doubted Simmons could sense his glare through the heavy fall of snowflakes.

There was white all around them. It almost hurt to look at it. It was cold as shit, too, though their armor did a great job of not letting them feel that. The snow was still a pain though, and it slowed them down to a painful, tiresome pace.

It made the mission feel endless, and Grif had felt tired even before they left Armonia.

“Kimball did tell us the mission would send us to the northern part of Chorus…” Simmons tried carefully.

“This is the fucking North pole!” Grif insisted. “There’s a bigger chance we’ll run into penguins and fucking Santa Claus than pirates.”

“The mission will be easy, then.”

That was a surprisingly good point, and it kept Grif quiet for a moment. All missions were a pain in the ass considering their actual asses were at risk of getting shot. But combine that imminent danger with freezing surroundings, and you’ve literally made hell.

His HUD let him know of an incoming call. “Report in.”

“We found something,” Matthews told him. He sounded a bit too excited about the fact.

The truth came a moment later when a message arrived with an attached file. Grif opened and saw a picture of a sad-looking snowman.

“What the fuck is that?!”

“A snowman!” Matthews said. “I built it, sir!”

“Why the fuck- Did I ask you to build snowmen?!”

“Noooo,” Bitters cut in, joining the channel. “But you have talked highly about your camouflage strategy, sir, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to practice.”

“Fuck you, Bitters, you just didn’t want to waddle through snow anymore.”

“Maybe.”

Grif swore and shut down the call.

While Simmons had only heard half of the conversation, it was enough to make him understand what was going on. He grinned. “Seems like Red Team will be the ones finding the storage.”

“Well, I’ll generously give you all that glory and honor, Simmons. You’re finally getting that promotion.”

Despite the fact that the helmet was hiding his red cheeks, Simmons turned his head away. “Shut up.”

It wasn’t that Grif hated snow with his entire being. He was mesmerized by it, mostly. Since he hadn’t had a lot of experiences with it (and those he had were connected with Sidewinder, and that was just a bad memory), so that kept his curiosity strong.

Right now, it just served to a) slow them down, and b) hide the objective. Kimball had discovered some old reports mentioning an abandoned storage shelter with a promise of supplies they could really use right now when Locus’ and Felix’s men seemed to be multiplying.

The problem was they didn’t have an exact location, and with their luck, it was buried under the snow somewhere. Grif kept hoping they’d just stumble across it, quite literally, but the hope had turned into desperation by now.

At least the surroundings had changed. Just a little. Instead of pure white, they were now looking at pure white _with_ a frozen lake in the middle.

“Seriously though,” Grif said while staring ahead. “If finding the storage means we can get the fuck back home, let’s find it.”

Simmons turned towards him. “Are you suggesting we split up?”

“How big is the area?”

“Hard to tell when we can’t see shit.” Simmons was quiet for a moment, considering their options. “We can keep track of each other on the HUD though.”

“And we’re sure we can’t just call the quits?”

“Kimball was really insistent.”

In the end, they chose to split up, Simmons turning left as they reached the lake, Grif turning right.

It was a small comfort that the layer of snow began to thin the closer he stayed to the bank of the lake. Instead of trudging through knee-deep snow, it stayed at the level of his ankles. It made for a quicker pace that Grif for once didn’t mind.

What was he even looking for? No one had told him how the storage was supposed to look?

They’d decided to meet up again at the other end of the lake, and by the time Grif was halfway, Simmons called him.

“Found a cabin. Pretty empty though. I don’t think it’s the storage.”

Of course, Simmons was too effective, actively looking through the forest. Grif didn’t bother to tell him that he hadn’t strayed away from the lake.

Grif opened his mouth, ready to praise Simmons for finding literally nothing, when his head dipped downward, and he noticed the track of bootprints in the snow.

They trailed in front of him, and the curious thing wasn’t their existence. It was how the track abruptly stopped, but when he looked up, nothing was there.

“Huh?”

“What?” Simmons asked him over the channel.

Locus appeared in the bootprints in less than a second, deactivating his cloaking, and his hand was lifting Grif by the throat before he could yell out in surprise.

Growing up in Hawaii, Grif had seen his share of fish being gutted. To earn some much-needed money, he’d cleaned out more than a few himself. Get the knife in, rip the insides out, throw the fish in the bucket.

Right now, Grif felt like a dead fish, dangling from Locus’ grip around his throat. His mind was still trying to process the sheer jumpscare he’d suffered through, a few choked gasps leaving his mouth, but he didn’t notice the knife before it’d slashed across his abdomen.

The cold hit him before the pain, seeping through the damaged armor.

“Grif?!” a voice echoed inside his helmet.

The world became a blur as he was sent flying through the air, and Grif let out a pained gasp when he landed, sliding across the ice and leaving a bloody trail behind until he finally came to a halt.

The air had been forced out of his lungs, and it refused to return. Grif was back at the fish parallel – squirming and gasping, trying to breathe. But he was alive. That was an important fact, and it confused him. His stomach was stinging, and his entire body throbbed with each quick heartbeat, but Locus hadn’t killed him despite the obvious chance to do so.

It all first made sense when maroon suddenly appeared in his blurry vision.

“Holy shit,” Simmons said as he skitted to a halt. The ice creaked under them. “What happened?”

Sometimes, if you threw the dead fish into a barren area, the birds would land to get them.

Three things happened at the same time:

Grif tried to get the word “Trap!” past his lips.

The mercenaries opened fire.

The ice broke.

Simmons’ brain couldn’t process all of it. He saw Grif in a pool of red against the ice, he heard the gunshots and was engulfed by darkness.

He sank, of course. The armor dragged him down, and Simmons watched the stream of bubbles travel upward.

It was a strange sensation to be surrounded by water without drowning immediately. Simmons would stare through his visor, watch the water turn darker and darker the further he sank. The lake didn’t prove to be too deep, though. As his boots finally reached the bottom, Simmons could tilt his head back and see the light shine through the hole in the ice.

Then the cold hit him, stinging and merciless when it hit his human skin. His HUD flashed to let him know of the bullet hole in his left arm, the leak that would kill him fast if he didn’t react soon. Well, the bullet had been an attempt to kill him in the first place. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

That was a trap, Simmons thought numbly, and then Grif was floating in front of him. No, not floating – swimming. Behind him, orange armor plates were drifting away, and Grif was only wearing his Kevlar suit. They’d be no use, considering how the armor had already been stabbed through. That meant Grif was drowning, running out of air-

Simmons was pulled out of his thoughts when Grif kept pulling at his arm. He wanted him to follow, Simmons realized, and with the darkness seemingly curling around him, Simmons understood that in order to swim, he had to follow Grif’s example.

Seemingly in slow-motion, with the water working against him, Simmons managed to reach the button to release the armor.

He hadn’t been prepared for the cold. It stabbed his human skin, leaving it numb and in pain all at once. His cyborg parts were no help either. While they didn’t feel the cold, they were heavy and dragged him down the moment he tried to swim.

‘Swim’ was a big word though. It mostly just consisted of frantic movement and clawing at the water.

It was Grif who wrapped an arm under his armpit and dragged the cyborg with him. To Simmons’ growing frustration – expanding along with his need for air – Grif didn’t swim upwards toward the hole. Instead, he stayed horizontal, pushing them forward with practiced kicks.

When their knees finally bumped against the bank, Simmons realized what he’d done. Grif had brought them both to the other end of the lake.

Simmons’ cyborg lungs had done a remarkable job of not drowning so far, but when they broke the surface, he couldn’t help but gasp. They hadn’t burned; it had been straining to hold his breath for so long, but not painful.

Grif was writhing next to him, letting out a string of choked gasps. They died out when Simmons pressed his face against the snow, keeping himself and Grif flat against the snow-covered ground. While trying to keep Grif still, struggling against his trembling, Simmons forced his brain to focus.

Half of his vision was blurry, but his cyborg eye didn’t fail him. Slowly, painfully slow, Simmons turned his head and focused on the other side of the lake. Steel and orange. He zoomed in.

Felix and Locus. Arguing. Facing each other. Not the lake.

This was the chance they needed, and Simmons’ grabbed Grif with his metal arm and swung him behind a nearby rock. He joined him a moment later, tumbling to the ground next to him before pressing himself against the cover.

By the time a thin layer of ice had begun to appear on their black suits, Simmons peeked over the rock and let out a sigh of relief when he saw the mercenaries had left. The lake was empty.

“H-ho-ly sh-h-hit,” Grif stammered, probably biting his tongue in the process. He had one bloodstained hand pressed against his abdomen, snowflakes gathering in his lap.

“Up.” Simmons’ left leg held steady, but the other one, the human one, almost buckled under his weight. But one leg was all he needed. Simmons gritted his teeth and held out a metal hand. “Gr-rif, up.”

Simmons was pretty sure he saw Grif shake his head stubbornly, but eventually he did reach up to take his hand. When he finally managed to pull the shivering Grif up, he almost lost his balance when Grif’s entire weight was suddenly leaning against him.

They walked together, Grif stumbling with every step, but Simmons’ cyborg limbs held steady: his leg led them forward, his arm refused to let go of Grif, and his eyes scanned the area ahead.

The cabin wasn’t far away. Simmons had just been there, and when he’d heard Grif’s groans over the radio, the trip back to the lake had felt timeless.

Now- now it just felt like an eternity.

Simmons looked down and saw the blood trail Grif was leaving behind. He tried not to think too much of it. The snow would cover it soon, he hoped.

They didn’t talk, but the silence was broken by the background music became a constant choir of shuddering breaths and chattering teeth.

The first thing Simmons did when they entered the cabin was to throw Grif onto the single bed that creaked under his limp form. Grif let out a quiet moan.

“Gr-rif.” Simmons stared down at him, realizing that his lips were a shade of blue. That had to be against the Red Team handbook or something.

Grif’s eyes opened to stare back. “S-sss-si-“

Simmons’ human hand was pressed against his torso. It’d been an instinctual move, mostly, but now Simmons understood why. He could feel the heat from the constant whirring that came from his chest. His torso was pretty much one machinery and despite the sudden swim, it’d reached its normal, constant temperature. Sarge had built him well. The gears marched on, and despite its numbness, the hand craved what little warmth it could get.

That was an advantage Grif didn’t have.

“Clothes off,” Simmons said, surprised with how steady his voice had become. His throat still hurt, though, and the hole in his shoulder kept leaking oil.

Grif blinked, probably checking if Simmons was blushing, but then he did was he was told. Tried too, at least. His hands were shaking too much, and he moaned every time he moved his midsection.

Simmons was having an easier time – at least, until he’d peeled the cold suit of himself, and he realized that he was standing fully naked. In front of Grif.

But there were other things to worry about, and Simmons limped toward the bed, leaning over Grif. Careful fingers approached the wound and then grabbed the corner of the tear, ripping the suit open to get Grif out of it.

When Grif’s body was finally exposed, scarred and bruised, Simmons could practically hear his own gears grind against each other in his head as he stared at the two sets of blankets folded at the bottom of the bed. He threw one over Grif’s chest and then proceeded to rip the other one into long pieces for a makeshift bandage.

Being forced to participate in a war (a real one) certainly improved your first-aid skills. At least if you actually paid attention to the lessons unlike Grif.

At least the wound had been cleaned when Grif had almost drowned. Simmons was trying to be an optimist here.

Actual treatment would have to wait, but Simmons did take a closer look at the slash before wrapping it tightly. “S’not so deep,” Simmons said while trying to keep both hands steady. Grif had closed his eyes again. “H-he wasn’t t-trying to k-kill you, just-“

From the corner of his eyes, he saw that Grif’s lips had turned into another shade of blue. Maybe Locus hadn’t killed him. Maybe he’d just used him as bait. But what did that matter if Grif ended up freezing to death in this cabin anyway?

To share the one blanket they’d left, Simmons crawled into bed. His heart skipped a beat when his naked skin came in contact with Grif’s. He might as well have jumped into the ice water again.

Grif automatically scooted closer to him, and Simmons resisted the urge to push the cold limbs away.

“F-fu-“

“You fetched me,” Simmons cut him off. His tongue felt normal now, and the rest of the body, the human parts, had begun to sting. The warmth was returning despite Grif being a block of ice.

“H-h-h-ea-v-vy,” Grif said, shuddering. He kept pressing himself against the cyborg as if he could melt into him. “A-and you s-say I’m f-f-fat.”

For a horrible second, Simmons imagined the mercenaries finding them in here, cuddling, naked. That was not a nice thought. But then he imagined Grif dying before that, freezing to death before anyone could find them, friend or foe, and that was even worse.

That wasn’t going to happen.

Simmons tore one hand free from Grif who grunted in protest and leaned away. The metal fingers wiped away oil before opening the hatch in his torso without trembling. He couldn’t see, but he knew himself well enough to find the button he was looking for. It felt like it’d been forever since he’d had actual fleshy organs.

The machinery hummed, and Simmons closed the hatch. It was done.

“Wha-“

“Overheating,” Simmons answered Grif. He tried to say it casually as if what he’d just done had little consequence. “If the choice is between hypothermia or blood loss, we might as well try to stay warm.”

Grif didn’t say anything but pressed himself against Simmons like a magnet unable to resist the metal.

“Try to keep moving your toes and fingers.” When Grif didn’t do as he was told, Simmons didn’t hesitate to reach out and grab his hands. He let their fingers intertwine, trying to rub some warmth back into them with his thumbs.

Grif looked up at him with big, confused eyes. But Simmons didn’t return the stare: he was too busy noticing the ice in Grif’s dark hair.

“H-have you a-a-a-aalways been able t-to do that?”

“No,” Simmons said. “I mean yes. I mean- It takes a lot of power.”

Now it wasn’t confusion in Grif’s eyes. It was worry.

“S’fine,” Simmons insisted, perhaps a bit too quickly. “The Lieutenants know we’re in the area. When they lost our signal, they must have started looking.”

Grif just continued to use Simmons’ chest as a pillow, letting out a tired sigh as he sought the warmth. The whirring from within seemed to grow louder. Simmons couldn’t feel the gears overworking, but he could so easily imagine it.

After a squeeze, he let go of Grif’s hand to let it travel downwards. He knew he’d reached the bandages when he felt something wet. Grif hisses, and Simmons pulled his hand back without commenting on the red on his fingertips.

With all things considered, Simmons now understood that confusion and worry were to be preferred. Now Grif just looked scared, too tired to hide the fear, and Simmons’ mechanical heart broke at the sight.

Simmons squeezed hand again, ignoring the blood. “If I’d told you about this, you would just have used me as a pillow. I would have ended up killing you back in Blood Gulch. You’d never have left me alone.”

“I used you anyway,” Grif muttered and hugged him closer.

His trembling had stopped, and Simmons wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.

When Grif didn’t react when he pressed his lips against his forehead (not even a snort, not even a hum), and he was either unconscious or too numb to feel it. Neither of those things was good so Simmons closed his eyes and let out a gasp when something in his chest gave out.

Simmons couldn’t really ask more from a chest made from spare parts from a robot kit and various electronics dialed to the max. It’d give out eventually but so would a human heart if cold enough.

This would be better than being tortured to death by Felix. It’d be like falling asleep. With Grif.

And that was something that had happened too many times before.

Simmons had just closed his eyes when the door was slammed open. He couldn’t find the strength to look up and see who it was, so he tried to follow Grif’s strategy and fall unconscious before the actual murder part could take place.

There was a gasp.

Then:

“Oh.” Bitters sounded offensively disappointed. “They’re sleeping.”

Simmons tried to answer him, but his jaw was stuck in place. His mechanical joints might as well have rusted in place, but he could hear the gears over-working inside, too much, too much, too much-

The blanket was thrown off them.

“Oh my god, they’re naked.”

Simmons, terrified but curious about what Detective Bitters would find next, passed out to the sound of his own exhausted, fake heart soldiering on.

* * *

Simmons woke up with a ringing in his ear and gloved hands inside his chest.

Something red pulled away from him, huffing proudly.

“-knew it! I told yer I knew it! It was the thingamabob all along!”

“Actually,” Simmons said, feeling weak and light-headed as he stared into a crowd of familiar, half-worried faces, “it’s called a-“

He passed out again before he could correct them.

* * *

Several frostbites had to be treated, and after his stomach had been stitched up, Grif was put under observation to keep pneumonia from developing. That meant bed rest, and as fate had already proven too many times, it was just a matter of time before the two of them were sharing a bed again.

It was way warmer this time though, even with Simmons’ chest having been put back on its normal settings.

Simmons was just about to doze off when he felt Grif’s bandaged fingers pawing at this chest. Apparently, he missed using his chest as a heated pillow.

Grif’s lips were no longer blue, which was how he’d avoided a mercy killing.

“Stop fondling me,” the cyborg grunted but didn’t sound too displeased. Sure, they may have scarred Bitters for life, but they’d survived, and that was the most important thing at the end of the day.

Especially in the middle of a war.

“C’mon,” Grif whined. He’d done that a lot ever since they’d be admitted to the hospital. Not when Grey was around, because she scared the life out of them both, but he used pity to get snacks and favors from anyone else who dared to enter their room.

Grif’s fingers had found Simmons’ hand instead, and Simmons wasn’t going to complain about that. He squeezed back. “No. I’m a stupid optimist who’d like to believe I can die of old age and that won’t happen if you mess with my settings.”

“Mhmm,” Grif said and continued to squirm in order to find the optimal cuddling position. “War and optimists don’t usually go well together.”

That was a sadly well-known truth.

Simmons gulped and tried to keep his eyes from burning. “One can try.” That happy ending had to be fought for. At least they were used to carrying weapons around. Now Simmons just had to learn to fight dirty if that was what it’d take to win.

But Simmons didn’t want to think about that. Not when Grif was busy burying his face against his neck.

“I’ll just have to do without it, then,” Grif muttered into his skin, comfortably warm.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to AmateurScribes! I hope you are having a wonderful day despite, well, the global chaos! Here's some Grif whump to brighten the day!
> 
> As always: English isn't my native language, and you can find me as RiaTheDreamer on tumblr.


End file.
